The Chief Executive of the Children's Rights Alliance has said that around 62,000 children in Ireland live in consistent poverty.
This means they are probably going to bed hungry, their family cannot afford new items of clothes and family outings to the zoo or cinema are not a possibility, Tanya Ward said.
The Children's Rights Alliance is launching a new Child Poverty monitor report.
It is the first in a series of reports that will analyse the complexity of child poverty across the country.
The monitor will explore the root causes and highlight solutions to address relevant issues, including educational disadvantage, social exclusion, accessing healthcare, homelessness, food poverty and income inadequacy.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Ward said that children living in consistent poverty are very aware of their situation and that has lifelong consequences for them.
She said that children who have lived through poverty from infants to the age of six are the most affected by poverty and that there must be more investment in early childhood.
"Barnardos have told us of stories where children in early years programmes have not eaten food and brought it home to feed their siblings. So children are very aware of this. If children lived through this, particularly if they live through it persistently, it has lifelong consequences for them."
Ms Ward said these scenarios are not inevitable and other countries have made decisions to invest in public services to ensure children do not have to experience such situations.
She added that there is a lack of national leadership on child poverty, pointing out that the Department of Children doesn't have a dedicated unit working on child poverty.
A national unit would be an important ingredient in addressing child poverty, she said.
Ireland is out of step with the rest of Europe when it comes to hot school meals, Ms Ward said, and every school should benefit from a free meal scheme.
The results from a free school meal are amazing, she said, the meals incentivise students to come into school and enables them to concentrate better in the classroom.
